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Friday, July 20, 2018

Discussion: 5 Bookish Questions!

Hey, Hey readers! I thought it was long past time to do a discussion post. I think this is going to be a really fun one, and I hope you'll all join in on the fun in the comment section or on the facebook page at LinzTheBookworm.

I'm trying to get better at posting more frequently, and a while back a friend gave some suggestions for discussion topics she'd like to see on the blog. Another friend sent me a few different links to ideas as well. While I was going through them I realized that I probably couldn't do a full post for a lot of them, so I thought I'd do a 5 bookish questions thing.

5 Bookish Questions:

1.) What are your favorite kinds of books you like to read during certain seasons/moods and why? (Requested by a lovely reader, Danielle. Hi!!!)

This is an interesting question for me because I don't really change my book tastes with the seasons and moods. My selection of what to read is entirely random at best. I do have some reading trends, but it's more based on what I've already finished reading. I tend to binge read series a lot. I'll think about a character like they're an old friend, wonder how they're doing and what they're up to and pick up where I left off in the series. I'll end up finishing the book and immediately go into the next book in the series because I feel like I need to stay on this adventure with them. I'll do this for a few books and then move on to something else. I will say if I start getting stuck in one genre for too long I'll find myself needing a break. Which is why you'll see a run of urban fantasy type things and then random historical fiction books.

2.) What do you think makes a compelling romance in a book? (acquired from the list posted here on pages unbound.)

For me, I think a lot of it's the flaws in the romance being depicted and how deep the relationship actually is. I guess I want it to seem realistic. If the book's central love is primarily based on how attractive someone is and all of the good I'm going to give myself a migraine from how much I roll my eyes into the back of my skull. I want it to be gritty and ugly, and some days it's a struggle to like the other person kind of relationship. I'm actually reminded of the Velveteen Rabit by Margery Williams, and I honestly think it explains what I find most compelling for romances in books. The husband person and I actually had this bit from the book read at our wedding, so it's extremely important to me. “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don’t matter at all because once you are real you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand.”

TL;DR realistic ugliness that comes with relationships.

3.) What are some of your bookish pet peeves? (Also from Pages Unbound, see above for the link.)

Part of my peeves was mentioned in the above question, actually. If a good chunk of a person's feelings for someone in a book is about their attractiveness and I'm hearing how they're so gorgeous someone is every 3rd sentence I'll eventually just get irate.

An extensive vocabulary that's entirely out of place and has shitty context. Yippie Skippy for you. You found a Thesaurus.

Books that actually don't need to be a series. It's completely okay to have a single book. Not everything needs to be a 15 book series.

Series numbers are not on the books for all series. For the love of everything sane tell me on the dang cover what order in the series it is. My craptastic phone hardly ever works in stores. I don't have the time, energy, or patience to try and pull up a list of the series in a bookstore while I'm shopping.

4.) Do you read nonfiction? Why or why not? (Also from Pages Unbound, see above for the link.)

I very rarely read nonfiction. It's not something that I am usually drawn to. A good chunk of why I read the things I do is to escape- be it a stressful day, anxiety, or whatever else. I feel like reading nonfiction would defeat this purpose for me. .Nonfiction tends to make me think of educational reading, and as a full-time student, I don't even want to read the textbooks I'm required to read, let alone pick one up for funsies.

5.) What book did you receive as a gift that is really special to you? (Also from Pages Unbound, see above for the link.)

I have two answers for this. The first is my set of Harry Potter books. My Mother-in-law is a Pre-school teacher and runs the Scholastic Books thing where she works. She had enough points to get this gorgeous set of all of the HP books, brand new, in a Hogwarts trunk. I actually refuse to read the books because this set is pristine. If I want to reread the HP series, I'll pull them up on Kindle, but those beauties they're staying in the trunk on display. Not only is it a really cool set, but it really means a lot to me that she used her points to get me the set.

A few years ago, the husband face got me two really gorgeous book editions. One is Wicked and Son of a Witch, the other is Alice in Wonderland. They're large leather (or fake leather, not sure) bound books with gorgeous details. Not only are they pretty but I love anything to do with Wizard of Oz and also Alice in Wonderland. And of course, the Hubs picked them out.

I was going to post pictures of both the trunk and the two leather bound books, but I'm lazy and don't want to get out from under my blankets. Using your imagination is good for you anyways.

So, there's my answer to 5 random bookish questions. This was kind of fun, and I still have a decent list of items from different blogs so I may make a few posts like this. I would love to read some answers below, so feel free to comment! If you have any questions or bookish topics you'd like to see me discuss let me know! I'm always open to suggestions, and if there's something you suggest it helps me get more posts out.

2 comments:

As we are practically the same person, it should not surprise you that my answer for #1 is pretty much identical. XD

For #2, I find a romance compelling if the characters themselves are compelling, and their interactions feel real. I'm in the middle of a re-read of the Wheel of Time series and Robert Jordan did an amazing job with one particular romance I am thinking of... and with another one, the "I love you" pretty much came out of freaking nowhere and made me say HUH? WHY?

Pet peeves... Unfinished book series *clears throat and glares in the general direction of George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss*. No really... probably terribly written gratuitous sex scenes that serve no purpose to the plot (especially when the author uses the same awkward phrases multiple times and makes me CRINGE EVERY TIME).

As for non-fiction... meh. I prefer to read for entertainment. (In Dragonmount.com's White Tower terms, that makes me Blue Ajah instead of Brown. They lean more toward reading to learn, while the Blues are all about the fandoms.)

Book gifts... book gifts.... I am trying to remember, I rarely have people give me actual books (usually they give me Amazon gift cards, lol). I believe my sister-in-law gave me a copy of a book of poems by Madeleine L'Engle, which I love.

I honestly expected at least a few of our answers to be the same. :D I hate having the "I Love you's" coming out of nowhere. I feel like I should be able to understand why it was said. Pet peeves we definitely agree with. I had to cut my list a little short because it would have ended up in a massive rant.

Thank you for reading my book blog. Please feel free to leave a comment to further or start a discussion on the book reviews and other posts. If you have a book recommendation for me I'd love to hear it!